Safety shoe with instep guard



Nov. 22, 1960 F. H. SCHLECHT SAFETY sHoE wml INSTEP GUARD Original FiledApril 6, 1959 United tates atet tice

SAFETY SHOE WITH [NSTEP GUARD Frederick H. Schlecht, Worcester, Mass.,assignor to H. H.

Brown Shoe Company, Inc., Worcester, Mass., a corporation ofMassachusetts Original No. 2,915,837, dated Dec. 8, 1959, Ser. No.804,438, Apr. 6, 1959. Application for reissue Apr. 15, 1960, Ser. No.22,655

4 Claims. (Cl. 36-72) Matter enclosed in heavy brackets appears in theoriginal patent but forms no part of this reissue specilication; matterprinted in italics indicates the additions made by reissue.

The present invention relates to footwear and in particular it isconcerned with safety shoes of the type having a guard for the instepofthe wearer.

As is well known to those skilled in the art, safety shoes or boots arecharacterized generally by the provision of a metal cap in the toe toprotect the wearer from an accidental blow. Although shoes of this kindhave contributed greatly to the reduction of industrial injuriesespecially from falling objects, it is apparent that not always does theblow fall in the area of the toes alone. For this reason it has beenproposed to provide safety shoes with a guard of some sort which willprotect the instepof the wearer as well as the toes. Heretofore theproblem has been, however, to make the guard stiff enough so as to beeffective and yet not interfere with the normal action of the foot inwalking. To my knowledge, safety shoes with instep guards have met withvery little, if any, success simply because no way was found toconstruct and mount the guard on the shoe in a manner to aiford areasonable degree of comfort.

The present invention has as its object the provision of a safety shoethat not only offers protection to both the toes and the instep, butalso that can be worn comfortably.

Another object of the invention is to provide for a shoe of theabove-mentioned character, an instep guard that is permanently attachedfor convenience and yet can be readily manipulated in such a Way as topermit the wearer to insert and remove his foot without diiculty.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a reasonablyattractive shoe of this kind so as to encourage its use especially inconnection with industrial safety programs.

The novel features of the invention together with further objects andadvantages will become apparent from the following detailed descriptionand the drawing to which it refers.

In the drawing:

Fig. l is a perspective view of a safety shoe according to the presentinvention;

Fig. 2 is a view in elevation of the shoe according to the presentinvention with certain parts broken away to show its construction moreclearly;

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken on line 3-3 of Fig. 2, and

Fig. 4 is an exploded view showing the parts of the instep guard for theshoe according to the present invention.

With reference now to the drawing, it will be observed that, in part,conventional work shoe construction is used. Thus the numeral 11designates the vamp, and the numeral 12 designates the quarter which aresewn together by the seam 13. In addition to the vamp and quarter, theshoe upper includes gores 14 of elastic fabric. lFor this reason theforward edge of the quarter and the rearward edge of the vamp do notmeet along their entire length but rather are connected by the gore 14as shown.

The outsole 15 of the shoe is joined to the upper by means of a welt 16as is the insole 17. The numerals 18 and 18a designate the weltstitching, and numeral 19 designates the filler layer used between theoutsole and insole, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Also in Figs. 2 and 3 isseen the cap 21 for the protection of the toes of the wearer, which isusually made of metal and which conforms to and overlies the toe portionof the upper. In accordance with the invention, overlying the toe capand the instep portion of the upper I provide an instep guard designatedgenerally by the numeral 22. The instep guard serves also to hold thetoe cap in place in a manner that will best be understood by referenceto the exploded view of Fig. 4. There it is seen that the instep guardincludes a core 23 shaped to conform generally to the instep andcomprised of relatively rigid material. A preferred material for thecore 23 is aluminum although certain plastic materials have been foundsuitable also. One is a copolymer of polystyrene, butadiene rubber andacrylonitrile, which has high impact strength. Beneath the core is alayer of cushioning material 24 such as sponge rubber or other suitableexpanded cellular material, the core 2'3 and layer 24 being held betweeninner and outer parts 25 and 26, of a cover of leather. The twosuperposed parts of the cover are sewn together, the outer part 25overlying the core 23, and the inner part 26 underlying the layer ofcushioning material. The seam between the inner and outer cover partsfollows the edge of the inner cover, and in addition there is a seam 2'7that runs down the middle of the inner cover. This is because the innercover is preferably formed with two adjacent halves and the seam 27simply represents the stitching which holds them together. In this way,the inner cover can be made to conform more faithfully to the contour ofthe core and the instep.

The relative positions of the assembled parts, for the sake of clarity,are outlined in dash-dot lines in the left hand view of Fig. 4. The edgeof the inner cover which is sewn to the outer cover has been representedby the dot-dash line 26', and the edge of the core by the dot-dash line23. Thus it is seen that the forward end of the inner cover extends somedistance beyond the core, and the outer cover extends some distancebeyond the inner cover. By means of this extended portion of the outercover, the instep guard is permanently joined to the sole together withthe upper. This is best shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where it will beobserved that the forward edge of the outer cover coincides generallywith that of the upper so that the welt stitching 18 simply passesthrough both to attach them to the rib of the insole 17.

At the rearward (upper) end of the instep guard, the edges of the innerand outer covers coincide although the core and underlying cushionterminate short thereof. In this way a relatively flexible region isprovided at this end of the guard for detachable fastening to the instepportion of the upper. For the latter purpose, there is sewn to the rearupper edge of the vamp', in the region between the gores, a ap 31 ofleather which is adapted to extend forward and down over the upper edgeof the instep guard. On the flap are two spaced snap fasteners 32 whichcooperate with snaps provided on the guard. These may be entirelyconventional, in which case they are joined to the flap and to the guardas by rivets.

In use, the snaps are undone to permit the wearer to insert his footinto the shoe, which he can do without any difficulty by virtue of theeXpansible nature of the gores. The snaps are then fastened to limit theextent to which the instep guard can move so that there will be noItendency for the guard to flop around and to become caught onprojecting objects. Also dirt is kept from falling down in between thevamp and guard. In the case of an accidental blow, the hard corefunctions as a load-distributing member not only tor preventconcentration of the blow at one point, but also to transmit asubstantial part of the force to the metal cap upon which the guardrests. Since the cap is adapted to come down against the sole and notthe toes, itfollows that the force of the blow on the guard that istransmitted to the cap will, in turn, by-pass the toes and beretransmitted to the sole where it will be ineffective to produceinjury.

According to my invention, therefore, I aml able to provide an instepguard which affords optimum protection and yet by virtue of itsconstruction and mode of mounting does not interfere at all with theaction of the foot. Another feature of the novel shoe is that it may beput on or taken off with ease in spite of the fact that` the instepguard covers the entire instep portion of the upper and is lasted underthe toe and part of the sides as an integral part of the shoe.

It should be understood, however, that the front end of the instep guardhas sufficient flexibility so that once the rearward end has beendetached from the upper it can be pulled away from the vamp a distanceamounting to at least several inches. Hence it is within thecontemplation of :the invention that an upper embodying a tieconstruction can be utilized instead of gores, if desired. For thatmatter, the invention is by no means limited to snap fastening of theguard, for, as is apparent, any suitable mode of detachable or separableconnection will serve equally well from a purely functional standpoint,the snap fasteners being preferred because of the ease with which `theycan be manipulated.

Other modifications of this nature, nevertheless, within the spirit andscope of the invention, will no doubt occur to those skilled in the art,such as by way of further example oxford type or full length bootsinstead of ankle length boots or shoes. Therefore, the invention shouldnot be deemed to be limited to the details of what has been describedbut rather it should be deemed to be limited only to the combination asclaimed.

What is claimed is:

1. A safety shoe comprising an upper, said upper including a portionadapted to cover the instep of the wearer, a reinforced toe portion andVa gore portion to make said upper eXpansible and thereby facilitateentry and removal of the foot of the wearer, a sole, an instep guardoverlying the instep and toe portions of said upper, said instep guardbeing formed with a relatively rigid core member having its forward endbearing on said toe portion, a layer of cushioning material disposedbeneath said core member, an outer cover over said core member, and aninner cover underlying said cushioning material and being joined by itsmarginal edges to said outer cover, said inner and outer coversextending rearwardly beyond said core member and said outer coverextending forwardly beyond said inner cover, a welt to permanently jointhe forward end of said outer cover and said upper to said sole, andmeans to detachably fasten the rearward end of said outer cover to saidupper.

2. A safety shoe comprising an upper, said upper including a portionadapted to cover the instep of the wearer, a reinforced toe portion, andmeans to make said upper expansible and thereby facilitate entry andremoval of the foot of the wearer, a sole, an instep guard overlying theinstepand toe portions of said upper, said instep guard being formedwith a relatively rigid core member having its forward end bearing onsaid toe portion, a layer of cushioning 'material disposed beneath saidcore member, an outer cover over said core member and an inner coverunderlying said cushioning material and being joined to said outercover, said covers extending rearwardly beyond said core member and oneof said covers extending forwardly beyond the other, the forward end ofsaid one of the covers being permanently joined to said upper and `tosaid sole, land means to detachably fasten the rearward end of said oneof the covers to said upper.

3. A safety shoe comprising an upper, a sole, an instep guard includingan inner cover, an outer cover, a relatively rigid core securedtherebetween for overlying and protecting the instep, and means forflexibly detachably securing the rear portion of said instep guard tosaid upper, said instep guard being flexibly anchored with respect tosaid sole forward of said means to permit' movement of said rear portionrelative to said upper, whereby said rear portion is suciently movablerelative to said upper to perm-it walking ease even when secured by saiddetachubly securing means.

4. The safety shoe of claim 3 in which said instep guard is anchored tosaid sole with such flexibility that said rear portion is movable awayfrom said upper a distance amounting to at least several inches when notsecured by said flexibly detachably securing means.

References Cited in the le of this patent or the original patent.

UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,110,624 Guitfre Sept. 15, 1914 2,615,261 GrottoOct. 28, 1952 2,712,185 lCorrigan July 5, 1955 2,829,449 Edwards et a1.Apr. 8, 1958 2,842,872 Shultz Y. Y July 15, 1958

